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Serious Sam Series
Serious Sam Serious Sam is the first video game (released in two episodes) in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Sam_(series) Serious Sam series]. It is a first-person shooter (with third-person shooter options) created by the Croatian development house Croteam. Originally released for the PC market only, Serious Sam's rising popularity resulted in the porting of the series to a number of different platforms, including the Xbox, GameCube,PlayStation 2 and Xbox Live Arcade, among others. The series follows the adventures of protagonist Sam "Serious" Stone and his fight against the forces of the notorious extraterrestrial overlord Mental who seeks to destroy humanity. Gameplay Serious Sam games are created in the style of more traditional First Person Shooters like Doom and Quake. Enemies spawn frequently and attack in large wave from across the map, and the player is intended to dodge their projectiles and charges by jumping and strafing rather than by taking cover. Health and armour are non-regenerative, and instead are topped up with the health and armour packs which are littered throughout the game. Available health is represented by a percentage number on the screen. The combat is high-paced and frenetic: The levels typically consist of a series of elaborate arenas, in which the player will defeat a set number of re-spawning enemies before proceeding to the next. The player can carry an unlimited amount of guns, and ammunition is plentiful. The visual style of the game is fantastical and humorous. Enemies range from soldiers with rocket launchers to gigantic charging robots to shrieking suicide bombers without heads and bombs for hands. The environments include alien planets, ancient Egyptian pyramids and tropical rainforests. Serious Sam features cooperative gameplay through a split-screen mode and via the internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam&action=edit&section=2 editEpisodes Serious Sam consists of three episodes: Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, and the fan-made level-pack Dark Island. A release, entitled Serious Sam: Gold Edition featured all the contents of The First Encounter, The Second Encounter and Dark Island. The games are on separate CDs (in the UK version) and are identical to their individual releases, except that the Sam character model for The First Encounter was modified to match the one used in The Second Encounter. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam&action=edit&section=3 editSerious Sam: The First Encounter The First Encounter was the first game in the series; it had been in the making since 1996 and had a video showing its early game play in 2000. The First Encounter was originally developed by Croteam as a demonstrator for their engine and this is the reason why some countries saw its initial release priced at less than half the value of other games in the genre. The game takes place after the events of Serious Sam 3: BFE and the introduction reveals what happened before the actual story took place. In ancient times, Earth was involved in a massive conflict between Mental, an evil extraterrestrial being who wants to rule the universe, and the Sirians, a sentient alien race that left many of its artifacts to be discovered by humanity. In the 22nd century, Mental and his army of grotesquely, twisted monsters return to Earth hell-bent on eliminating humanity, as a last resort for the usage of the "Time-Lock" is decided. This mysterious Sirian artifact contains the power to transport a single person back through a chosen point of time. Because of his bravery in fighting these monsters, Sam "Serious" Stone (who was chosen to use the "Time Lock") can hopefully defeat Mental and alter the course of history. As the game opens, Sam appears inEgypt. He travels from one Egyptian monument to the next, fighting against the monsters Mental sent after him along the way. During Sam's journey, Sam is able to find and activate a hidden Sirian communicator in the shape of an obelisk located in Luxor, which summons a Sirian starship to Earth from deep space. Sam rushes to the Great Pyramids of Giza in order to rendezvous with the starship, only to be cornered by Mental's general, Ugh Zan III. After defeating this giant, Sam then teleports himself onto the starship. While Sam is aboard the "SSS Centerpiece", he leaves a phone message to Mental telling him that "he has a special delivery package for him" and sets a course to Sirius, the Sirian homeworld. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam&action=edit&section=4 editSerious Sam: The Second Encounter The Second Encounter starts where the previous game left off, with Sam traveling to Sirius on the "SSS Centerpiece". Unfortunately, the starship is accidentally hit by the "Croteam crate-bus" and plummets down to Earth's surface. As the starship falls, Sam reads the coordinates and frets about crash-landing into Egypt again, but instead he crashes into Central America in theMayan age, with the starship now heavily damaged upon impact. However, not all hope is lost, since the Sirians left a "back-up starship" on Earth, which was a fail-safe in case if anything ever happens to the "SSS Centerpiece". However, since this "back-up starship" is located in a different time and age than where and when Sam is currently in, he will have to uncover the locations of the other Sirian Time-Locks that will help him reach his destination. With this new objective, Sam storms through Mesoamerica, then travels to Mesopotamia and finally to Medieval Europewhere the "back-up starship" is located. During his journey, Sam battles two of Mental's Time-Lock guardians: a powerful spirit named Kukulkan the Wind God and a biomechanical creature called the Exotech Larva. Finally, in front of the Cathedral of Sacred Blood, Sam confronts the last obstacle to overcome on his path to the Holy Grail, Mordekai the Summoner. After a glorious battle with Mordekai and his spawning minions, The Summoner is finally silenced forever. In the Cathedral, Sam lifts the Holy Grail in the palms of his hands, followed by his confessions of his sins in a booth...to Mental, during which he reassures Mental that "he's coming to get him." During the end credits, Sam activates the "back-up starship" and travels back into space toward his next adventure. The story then continues on to Serious Sam II. Other than the more varied locations, The Second Encounter features some additional weapons—a chainsaw, a flamethrower, a sniper rifle, and the powerful Serious Bomb—and a number of new monsters that Sam has to face. This game has also seen the release of a level-pack titled Dark Island, featuring fan-made levels for single and multiplayer mode. The Second Encounter soundtrack featured three instrumental songs from the Croatian heavy-metal band Undercode: 1. Freedom 2. As Above, So Below 3. Enlightening the World http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam&action=edit&section=5 editDark Island Dark Island is a fan-made level-pack for Serious Sam that was released officially as part of Serious Sam: Gold Edition. Serious Sam II Serious Sam II (or Serious Sam 2) is a science fiction first-person shooter video game released for the PC and Xbox and the sequel to the 2002 computer game Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, making it the third game in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Sam_(series) Serious Sam series]. It was designed and developed by Croteam and was released on October 11, 2005. The game was initially published by 2K Games, a Take-Two Interactive subsidiary.[2] The game was later made available on Steam on January 31, 2012.[3][4] While the game was originally released only for Windows and the Xbox, a Linux version of the game client and the game's content editor, Serious Editor 2, was later released and is in beta.[5][6] In the single-player campaign, the player assumes the role of hero Sam "Serious" Stone in his adventures against the forces of the extraterrestrial overlord, "Mental", who seeks to destroy humanity. Taking place after the events of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Sam travels through various worlds collecting parts of a medallion in an effort to defeat Mental. He is guided by the Sirian Great Council and receives sporadic aid from the natives of the worlds he visits. The multiplayer mode includes online co-op and deathmatch, the latter having been introduced in a patch.[7] A 4.5/5.0 was awarded to Serious Sam by Computer Gaming World, though overall the game received moderate praise from the media, earning an average of 75% on Game Rankings.[8][9] Croteam simultaneously developed Serious Engine 2, the successor to their previous game engine, Serious Engine, for use in the game, and the engine is capable of many features of other advanced game engines of the time including high dynamic range rendering and light bloom.[10] The engine supports integration with both Xfire and GameSpy Arcade for multiplayer match finding. Serious Sam II''is the only game so far to use the proprietary engine, though the Serious Engine II is available for licensing. Gameplay Features ''Serious Sam II's gameplay consists almost entirely of the player attempting to defeat dozens of enemies at a time, and thus is relatively simple. The game's story establishes the reasons and methods for how the player travels from chapter to chapter. This is a significant change from the previous games in the series in which the story existed merely to transport the player from place to place in order to kill as many enemies as possible in the process, with the plot consisting merely of messages that the player could disregard without consequence. Serious Sam II features the story more prominently, but still maintains the focus on killing as many enemies as possible.[11][12] The story is developed through the use of cut scenes, which are interspersed throughout the game, especially at the beginning and end of each Planet.[13] The player begins with a certain number of lives that represent the number of times the player is allowed to lose all of his health (and then re-spawn immediately from the players last saved checkpoint). More complicated gameplay mechanics that are often found in other games (such as jumping puzzles) are rare, and when encountered they are fairly simple, usually requiring the player to locate keys/objects in order to unlock doors or advance to the next level. Player-controlled vehicles (such as hover bikes and saucers) were introduced to the series in Serious Sam II. Vehicles feature turrets such as rocket launcher, machine gun, and laser turrets.[14] The simplistic gameplay of Serious Sam 2 is similar to that of previous games in the series, but Serious Sam 2's lives system is a radical departure from the original games in the series (which would allow you to resume from checkpoints or saved games an infinite number of times). Although Serious Sam for Xbox was the first game in the series to feature a "lives system", Serious Sam 2 was the first PC game in the series to implement this system.[15][11][12] Blood and gore effects have been improved relative to the previous games, and all enemies other than bosses can be gibbed.[16] Living foes can disintegrate into blood and bloody bits, undead entities, excluding Kleer Skeletons, can be reduced to decaying bits and pus, while magical creatures' destruction is marked with sparkle effects and purple gases. Power-ups are scattered throughout the game and can be obtained by destroying certain objects. The player is able to pick up certain objects and manipulate them in a manner similar to the effects of the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, though without the necessity of an external device. While the game features various enemies seen in first person shooters, such as soldiers with chainguns, blasters and rocket launchers, there are also many other oddball enemies, like witches, clockwork toy rhinos, zombie stockbrokers with shotguns and suicidal exploding clowns. Different chapters feature native "chapter specific" enemies; for example the Kleer World features Flying Kleers and the Oriental setting of Chi Fang features Martial Arts Zombies. The players will also meet non-player characters (NPCs) throughout the game. There are five different groups of NPCs in the game:The Sirians, the Simbas, Zixies, Chi Che, and Elvians, each native to their respective planet. The different groups of NPCs help the player throughout the different settings of the game, with each group of NPC corresponding to a different setting in the game. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam_II&action=edit&section=2 editBosses There are seven bosses in the game (though the Xbox version has no final boss). Similar to the friendly NPCs, the bosses correspond to the different in-game settings:[17] *''Kwongo'' - Giant gorilla similar to King Kong in appearance. Kwongo is the terror of M'Digbo's people and Mental's main enforcer on the planet. Simbas, the people of the planet, helps Serious Sam to put down the beast using a catapult. *''Zumzum'' - Giant bee that serves as Mental's main henchman on planet Magnor. Sam fights Zumzum near giant flowers. *''Prince Chan'' - Mental's pawn dictator on planet ChiFang, Prince Chan is a giant, sharp-teethed, sumo-like, childish idiot that enjoys eating the planet's population. He hates loud sounds (like that of a gong), a weakness that Sam uses to his advantage. *''Kleerofski'' - The necromancer and ruler of planet Kleer, which is populated by undead Kleers. Kleerofski is a giant Kleer in mage-like clothes. *''Cecil'' - The most dangerous creature of Ellenier, Cecil is a fairy-tale dragon. He is of purple color and very emotional. He is the only enemy that surrenders to Sam and who is not killed by him. *''Hugo'' - The giant, toy-like battle robot which is dispatched by Mental to stop Serious Sam on Kronor. His name and his status as the game's boss is a nod towards Hugo Boss. *''Mental Institution'' (not featured in Xbox version) - Pyramid-like building and Mental's HQ. It is armed with powerful weapons and is actually very mobile. To crush this last bastion of enemy forces, Sam uses a vehicle. In order to stop the building's enemy potential, its Power Core, that sometimes become visible, should be destroyed. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam_II&action=edit&section=3 editMultiplayer A prominent feature in the previous Serious Sam games was cooperative gameplay, in which multiple players could play the single-player campaign together. Serious Sam II focused on this game mode even more than its predecessors, as it was the only multiplayer mode to be included when the game was released, although deathmatch was later added in a patch.[7] The PC version allows up to sixteen people to play together, while the Xbox version allows four players, either via Xbox systemlink or Xbox Live. Unlike the previous games, Serious Sam II does not support split-screen gameplay on the PC nor the Xbox.[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam_II&action=edit&section=4 editWeapons Weapons in Serious Sam II were largely remodeled versions of the weapons found in the previous games in the Serious Sam series. Most of the weapons from the previous games returned, such as the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, 12-gaugedouble-barrel sawed-off shotgun and a sniper rifle. The minigun, a staple of the series, also makes a return, and is a weapon of particular significance as it was featured prominently on the cover of the box for many of the previous Serious Sam games. The Serious Bomb also made a return, maintaining its status as the most powerful weapon in the game by being able to eliminate every enemy on the screen. The Serious Bomb is described as a "miniature big bang" and as "Instant Death With a Smile," and the player is only able to carry a maximum of three due to their size. Protecting the player from the immense power of the Serious Bomb is a "Life-Preserving-Quantum-Field™." Serious Sam II introduced new weapons to the series, including "Clawdovic Cacadoos Vulgaris," (the name is pronounced in Croatian as Klodovik, which is a reference to a parrot Klodovik in comic series Alan Ford ) a parrot clutching a bomb in its talons that can fly to an enemy to eliminate it, and throwable hand grenades. In addition to dual revolvers, the game also includes an additional sidearm of a brand-new design. The "Hydro-Plasmatic Handgun" can fire small units of energy at a "decent rate of fire," and it can also be fired in a mode that allows the projectile to direct itself towards an enemy. Also introduced to the game are twin automatic Uzis replacing the tommygun from the earlier games of the series).[17][18] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam_II&action=edit&section=5 editPlot The game's story picks up shortly after the end of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, with the hero of the series, Sam "Serious" Stone, continuing his goal to defeat his arch-nemesis, Mental. The game begins with Serious Sam being summoned before the Sirian Great Council, where the Council provides him with guidance on how to accomplish his goal to defeat Mental. The Council reveals to Sam that he must collect all five pieces of an ancient Sirian medallion, each held by various groups on five different planets, and states that once Sam has the entire medallion, Mental will be vulnerable. All the planets (except Kleer) are populated by friendly, bobble-headed humanoids, but the problem is that all the planets are under Mental's control. The Council then instructs Sam to visit all five planets in order to recreate the medallion, only then will Sam become "The One". Confused at the moment and with nothing better to do, Sam accepts the mission. *''M'Digbo'' (populated by Simbas) - A tropical paradise that is spoiled by Mental's forces. Here, Sam recovers the first part of the medallion after he defeats his first titanic enemy, Kwongo(A gigantic gorilla). *''Magnor'' (populated by Zixies) - A world of giant trees and objects that make Sam feel like a toy soldier. Here, Sam conquers the second part of the medallion after he defeats Zumzum(A gigantic bee). *''ChiFang'' (populated by Chi Che) - A planet that looks like a Chinese land and features many oriental stereotypes. The third part of medallion is received here after Prince Chan is killed by Sam. *''Kleer'' (populated by Kleers) - The homeworld of the Kleer Skeletons, the enemies heavily featured in the previous Serious Sam installments. Kleer is a fiery planet filled with lava and active volcanoes. The fourth medallion part is retrieved after Sam defeats Kleerofski, the supreme ruler of Kleer. *''Ellenier'' (populated by Elvians) - A medieval fairy-tale based planet which features beautiful landscapes, towns and castles. The final part of the medallion is located here where Sam acquires it by defeating Cecil, a giant pink dragon who rules over Ellenier. After the battle, Sam spares his life in exchange for the final medallion part. With the medallion finally complete, Sam is now ready to begin the final assault against the greatest enemy of humanity...Mental, who is located on Sirius, once the planet of the great Sirians that visited Earth many times, now the domain of Mental himself. But in order to gain access to Sirius, Sam is asked to storm Kronor, a moon orbiting Sirius that has a massive cannon which could be used to remove Sirius' protection shield, which was a last line of defense for the Sirians against Mental. And so, Sam's mission continues. *''Kronor'' - An ice moon where many of Mental's structures and forces are located. Here, Sam has not only to conquer the enemy's base and remove the protection shield of Sirius, but also to lead various people from the planets he visited, who are being held here as prisoners, into the final battle against Mental. After defeating Hugo, a massive robot dispatched by Mental, he activates the cannon that dispatches the shield and soars off to Sirius. *''Sirius'' - A planet that was once populated by the Sirians, now under Mental's control. The traces of Sirians were seen many times by Sam in Earth's past. However, the time of the Sirians' glory was long over, as Mental took over their planet way before Sam's time. Sirius is a high-tech planet full of skyscrapers, energy fields and other stereotypical science fiction scenery. You fight through Siriusopolis Uptown and Downtown before reaching Mental. However, when Sam makes his way to Mental's heavily protected structure, Mental Institution, he has to battle the building itself, which is revealed to be quite a powerful adversary (In the Xbox version, the player doesn't fight this boss). In the endgame, Sam enters Mental Institution after disabling it and into Mental's throne room. Sam finally encounters Mental in person while the lights are off and while Mental tries to reveal to Sam that he is his father, Sam interrupted by shooting him, thus silencing Mental forever. After that, the Sirian Great Council, even the inhabitants from the planets, celebrate their long-achieving victory against Mental. When the lights come back on however, it is revealed that Mental wasn't there at all and it was instead just a speaker attached to Mental's throne, implying that he actually tricked Sam in order to escape in his starship into deep space (In the Xbox version, the game doesn't show this scene). The credits roll after that, where a dialog of three unknown people is played discussing how big Mental's boss fight could be. After the credits, a silent-motion scene shows Sam returning to the Sirian Great Council with the medallion in hand. As they take the medallion however, Sam soon discovers that the Council had cardboard-boxes full of those medallions. Sam then becomes enraged and chases the Council around their room, thus giving the final conclusion to the story. Serious Sam 3: BFE Serious Sam 3: BFE (Before First Encounter) is a first-person shooter video game developed by Croteam and published by Devolver Digital. It is the latest game in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Sam_(series) Serious Sam series] and a prequel to Serious Sam: The First Encounter. The game's story takes place in the 22nd century, during Mental's invasion of Earth, as implied in The First Encounter. The game is set in Egypt and features a 16-player co-operative campaign mode, as well as 4-player splitscreen. The game was released on November 22, 2011 on Windows, October 17, 2012 on Xbox Live Arcade, while the PlayStation 3 andLinux[2] versions release date have not been announced yet.[3] Gameplay Like previous titles in the series, Serious Sam 3: BFE involves fighting against many hordes of enemies in wide-open environments. However Serious Sam 3 has more closed environments than its predecessors, particularly in the early levels. There are also a larger number of enemies that can attack the player from a distance. The player can carry an unlimited amount of weapons, including a minigun, rocket launcher, assault rifle and a cannon. There are 13 weapons total. 5 of them have a manual reload. This is a significant change in the series, as the previous Serious Sam games only had one manual reloading weapon, the pistol. The signature close-combat weapons from the first game, the knife and chainsaw, have been replaced with a sledgehammer with three modes of attack (vertical strike, 180 turn and full 360 turn). There is no regenerating health, instead there are health and armor power-ups scattered throughout the levels that the player must pick up. Additionally, the levels are full of secret areas, where health, armor, ammo and in some cases, weapons from later levels can be found, following the tradition of the previous games. Some weapons such as the Lasergun and the Sniper Rifle and their respective ammunition pickups are in fact secret-only, and otherwise are not be found in the levels normally. There are no puzzles, however the player must find keys, pull levers and find environmental anomalies to progress. Classic enemies such as the Beheaded Kamikaze, Beheaded Rocketeer and Kleer Skeleton return in the game. New ones include the Khnum and Scrapjack (resembling the Hell Knight and Mancubus''from ''Doom, respectively), as well as the cloned soldiers. The Kamikaze has returned to his original design, rather than the Serious Sam II design. The Gnaar's design has radically been changed from the original game. It is now much larger, differently shaped and walks on all fours, rather than its bipedal counterpart in Serious Sam. Serious Sam 3 features some new gameplay mechanics such as sprinting and iron sights. Unlike many other FPS games that have sprinting, you are able to sprint as much as you want. You can never attack while sprinting though. The pistol and assault rifle have the ability to aim down sights, which increases accuracy but slightly. The player moves slower while aiming down the sight, making it impractical at close range. The player can perform hand kills or kick enemies to conserve ammo, depending on the weapon selected. For example, a Gnaar's eyeball can be ripped out or an Antaresian Spider's shell can be broken. This proves largely futile in the later levels, as the player still sustains damage when a melee attack is performed. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serious_Sam_3:_BFE&action=edit&section=2 editPlot Serious Sam 3: BFE serves as a prequel to the original Serious Sam: The First Encounter and depicts the events on Earth before Sam's journey into the past. Prior to 2060 A.D, humanity had slowly begun uncovering artifacts and ruins left behind in ancient times by the Sirians, the famous and long-thought extinct race from the place of Sirius. Unfortunately, Mental has chosen this time to turn his attention upon Earth. He dispatches his space fleet carrying his endless hordes to attack Earth, leading a three year conquest that has humanity driven almost to the point of extinction. In a last-ditch effort, the survivors turn to the time-lock; A recently excavated device supposedly capable of granting a single person the ability of time travel via an inter-dimensional portal. Through it, that person could reach a pivotal point in time and alter events of the past. But as the device lies dormant, they must first discover a means to turn it on. Sam "Serious" Stone, part of the Earth Defense force, is dispatched with a detachment of soldiers in Alpha team to modern Egypt, which is occupied by Mental's alien army. Their original mission is to recon, rendezvous and extract Bravo team who are protecting Dr Stein, a scientist carrying hieroglyphics believed to contain instructions for powering up the Time-lock. Sam's insertion goes haywire as his chopper is shot down and both teams are quickly wiped out. However, he is able to recover the hieroglyphics from Stein's phone in the museum and transmit them to headquarters. Deciphering indicates there is a hidden Sirian chamber below the Great Pyramid. Sam clears himself a path to a tunnel underneath the Sphinx and descends into the Pyramid. He not only discovers the hidden chamber, but recovers crucial information and a bracelet device from the remains of what might've been Earth's last Sirian. In order to power the Time-lock, two dormant but incredibly powerful plasma-energy generators need to be activated. Hellfire from Charlie team inserts Sam to bring both online. This is slowly accomplished and Charlie team is staged to enter the time-lock. Sam is relieved of duty and in the process of being extracted from Cairo, but is shot down once again and is forced to flee towards the lost ruins of Nubia. He is then contacted again by Hellfire. Headquarters is down, Charlie team has been completely wiped out and only she remains. She urges Sam to hide somewhere safe before being cut off, to which Mental taunts Sam with the inevitability of defeat and being 'mooned'. Enraged, Sam vows it is not over until he has had his way with Mental and his hordes, then plots a hasty course for the time-lock. The struggle to this destination ends with Sam killing Ugh-Zan IV, the newest incarnation of the infamous Ugh-Zan III from Serious Sam: The First Encounter, at the temple of Hatshepsut. Sam then calls Mental on his phone, only to be answered by Mental's daughter, Judy. Sam asks Judy to give her father a message, that "Sam's coming over to play. And by play, I mean kill him." Suddenly, he notices the moon (Sent by Mental to destroy Earth) plummeting rapidly within the atmosphere. Realizing whats about to happen, he just manages to jetpack into the time-lock's inter-dimensional portal and begins his journey to Ancient Egypt. The game ends as Mental "moons" Earth (crushes the moon on Earth's surface), destroying the planet. Credits Serious Sam Wikipedia: '''http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Sam ''Serious Sam II Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Sam_II'' ''Serious Sam 3 - BFE Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Sam_3:_BFE'' ''Serious Sam Wikia: 'http://www.serioussam.wikia.com/wiki/Serious_Sam_Wiki All information, citation, and reference can be found on these Wiki's.